Typhoon Haiyan: Could mystery man on tape be Tacloban patriarch of 30 missing?

By Hilary Whiteman, CNN

Updated 0111 GMT (0911 HKT) November 14, 2013

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Photos:Family searches for missing Tacloban relatives

Is this man missing uncle? – A man bearing a striking resemblance to 68-year-old Rogelio Tan was seen in a four-second clip on a GMA video posted to Pinoyechannel.

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Photos:Family searches for missing Tacloban relatives

Prayers in Tacloban church – The man is seen standing in Santo Nino Church de Tacloban, an imposing pink church where Rogelio Tan and his family regularly prayed.

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Photos:Family searches for missing Tacloban relatives

Rogelio Tan in a family photo – This is a file photo of Tan, supplied by his niece Daisy Nemeth, who has been trying to find 30 members of her family missing since Super Typhoon Haiyan struck Tacloban on Friday.

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Photos:Family searches for missing Tacloban relatives

Family of 30 missing after storm – Tan, 68, is seen on the right of this photo. His children and grandchildren also went missing after Friday's Super Typhoon smashed into the coast, flattening houses and bringing a storm surge that killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

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Photos:Family searches for missing Tacloban relatives

The faces of those still lost – Daisy Nemeth's focus has now turned to finding Rogelio's son, Rogelio Tan Jr. and his wife Vanessa, along with their three young children seen in this family photo.

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Photos:Family searches for missing Tacloban relatives

No sign of missing family – Vanessa Tan stands with her young son and her husband Rogelio Tan Jr. Vanessa kept in touch with extended family in Denmark on an almost daily basis. The last message she posted on Facebook was last Thursday, thanking God that her family had escaped the storm which was yet to hit.

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Photos:Family searches for missing Tacloban relatives

An image of Santo Nino Church in Tacloban, Leyte on November 12, 2013, a few days after Super Typhoon Haiyan. Its roof has been torn off. The image matches video seen on television where a man believed to be Rogelio Tan was praying.

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Story highlights

Elderly man seen on Filipino news channel could be missing uncle

Daisy Nemeth's sister saw him in a quick shot during a news report, posted online

Nemeth has been looking for 30 members of her family missing since the typhoon hit Tacloban

Nothing was heard from them for days after Super Typhoon Haiyan hit on Friday

The image lasts just four seconds, flashed on the screen during the opening sequence of a Filipino news program posted online.

It's of an elderly man kneeling on a church pew, his lips moving as though in prayer, and it's given new hope to a woman in Hong Kong who hasn't heard from 30 members of her family since Super Typhoon Haiyan smashed into Tacloban in the Philippines last Friday.

"We think this is my uncle! They look identical!" Daisy Nemeth wrote in an email to CNN, after receiving an overnight message from her sister, Merceditas Tan Østergaard, in Denmark, who's been scanning online news in the hope of seeing a familiar face.

And there it was.

The lone, elderly man in silent prayer bears a striking resemblance to 68-year-old Rogelio Tan, the patriarch of the sprawling Tan family who all but disappeared during the storm.

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"She was staring at the video clips and he was there in one of them. But his wife wasn't and his children weren't," Nemeth said from her home in Hong Kong, her joy of seeing her uncle tempered by the thought of those who weren't there, or couldn't be seen.

The family recognizes the church as the Santo Niño Church de Tacloban, a distinctive pink Roman Catholic Church just one block from the coast where a devastating storm surge swept in, killing hundreds, if not thousands of people.

The church withstood the storm, though its towering spire has been stripped of its roofing, as has most of the main building. Yet, it was there that the man suspected to be Tan can be seen praying, as he has done countless times before. His family lived just streets away.

The possible reappearance of her uncle four days after the typhoon was not the only news raising Nemeth's hopes that more relatives can be found.

On the same day, it emerged her cousin Hazel Tan and her five children, aged between nine and 19, had made it out of the storm. Nemeth has no idea how or where they are, but a family member passed on the news that they're safe and have since left Tacloban.

Nemeth says she expected to feel elation after finding some members of her missing family, but days of worry have left her emotionally exhausted.

"You think about what's going to happen when you find them, that it's going to be relief and joy and happiness and it wasn't," she said. "I checked them off the list and moved onto my uncle. And now I've checked him off the list, now I'm moving on to someone else. There's so much going on, feeling relief is impossible in this situation."

Her thoughts have now turned to her other cousin, Rogelio Tan Jr., his wife Vanessa, and their three young children, aged from four to eight years old.

The Super Typhoon hit the Philippines coast just before 5 a.m. last Friday, flattening buildings, swamping homes and businesses with flood water and leaving a trail of destruction authorities and locals are still trying to comprehend.

"I'm so tired at this point. I'm not negative about the situation but whatever happens, happens, at this point," Nemeth said.

"But I want the kids out. The thought of them living with bodies lining the streets -- it's pure misery there,"